What It Means To Be A Confidant

What It Means To Be A Confidant

Con-fi-dant: a trusted friend or associate that you can talk to about personal and private matters. (Merriam-Webster)

When someone asks me what I do, my historical response has been financial advisor, wealth manager, business owner, counselor, financial planner, CPA, personal chief financial officer, coach, and confidant. Yes, that’s me, all rolled into one.

As I’ve grown in experience and skills over the years, I’ve found that those last two, coach and confidant, may, in fact, be my most critical roles.

I’ve also noticed that traditional wealth management services have become table stakes and are not what many business leaders value most anymore.

They want more from the advisory relationship but can’t seem to find it in traditional financial or wealth management shops.

While specialists like financial advisors, accountants and attorneys can address specific wealth management questions, what’s often missing from the busy CEO’s life is that trusted person who understands the holistic complexity in his or her business and personal life.

I strive to provide solid financial and business expertise and serve as a dispassionate sounding board, a role I call “CEO Confidant”.

By holding a safe place for the executive to work on life path issues, I’ve seen remarkable benefits as personal values become integrated with wealth decisions. This simply makes for a more meaningful life.

As a CEO Confidant, I welcome confidential conversation about the most important issues facing the business leader including:

  • career transition
  • retirement
  • legacy
  • kids and money
  • marriage and divorce
  • health concerns
  • values and life purpose

When I do my job well, I facilitate positive action in the leader’s professional and personal life. This can have the missional benefit of impacting the people in their sphere of influence.

The job of a CEO can be lonely. For a variety of reasons, confiding in colleagues, company associates, family members or friends presents complications. Powerful individuals often isolate themselves as a reaction to their inability to find people they can confide in.

Abundance and isolation are not often discussed in the same context because the assumption is that abundance only solves problems and does not create them.

Material success does not make you invulnerable to the pitfalls of life – we need only to glance at the headlines to verify that.

In fact, material success can create unique vulnerabilities that are often overlooked because, after all, the “problems” of the wealthy are not really problems.

Not every CEO may want a confidant. But for many, developing a circle of trusted peers, people to connect with regularly, perhaps even joining a group such as Vistage can be useful.

The CEO Confidant can be particularly helpful when

  • aligning life priorities with the responsibilities of wealth
  • wanting more meaning and purpose in life
  • desiring a candid and experienced perspective
  • Usually, the answers are within us but we can’t see them, or we are stuck. Clarity can come from skilled questioning and guided discovery. Being asked the right questions can be the first step in achieving ideal outcomes.

Who do you turn to when you need to find clarity? Who is your “CEO Confidant”?


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